Guides
Ice cream shop products: the version that survives contact with reality
Ice cream shop products customers compare, as a table: seventeen lines, what the customer actually weighs each one against, and the trap each hides for the shop.
What to take away
- Customers compare each product against something specific, and it is rarely another ice cream shop. A pint is compared with the supermarket freezer; a cone with the cafe next door; a cake with a bakery.
- Seventeen product lines are set out below with the comparison the customer is making and the trap the line hides. Nothing is ranked.
- Knowing what you are being compared against tells you what the product has to be better at, and that is a sharper instruction than "be the best".
How to read the table
Each row gives the line, what the customer holds it against, and the question the customer is really asking. It also gives the trap: how the line most often goes wrong for the shop.
Product lines and their traps
Product line
- Single scoop in a cup
- Scoop shop across town
- Cone
- Same scoop in a cup
- Double or triple scoop
- The single
- Gelato spade serving
- Ice cream by scoop
- Sorbet and dairy-free
- Fruit, or nothing
- Kids' size
- Not buying
- Tasting flight
- A single scoop
Compared against
- Single scoop in a cup
- Worth walking here?
- Cone
- Does it feel like more?
- Double or triple scoop
- Is second scoop value?
- Gelato spade serving
- Why denser and pricier?
- Sorbet and dairy-free
- Can I eat here?
- Kids' size
- Will it be finished?
- Tasting flight
- Can I try first?
Customer's question
- Single scoop in a cup
- Serving size drift
- Cone
- Breakage and cost
- Double or triple scoop
- Second scoop nearly free
- Gelato spade serving
- Staff cannot explain overrun
- Sorbet and dairy-free
- One pan, held too long
- Kids' size
- Loss leader becomes default
- Tasting flight
- Labor; takes four
Trap for the shop
- Single scoop in a cup
- Cone
- Double or triple scoop
- Gelato spade serving
- Sorbet and dairy-free
- Kids' size
- Tasting flight
There are no recommendations: whether a line is worth running depends on your case space, freezer and arithmetic, which the contribution formula for products sets out.
Compared against
- Single scoop in a cup
- The scoop shop across town
- Cone
- The same scoop in a cup
- Double or triple scoop
- The single
- Gelato spade serving
- Ice cream by the scoop
- Sorbet and dairy-free
- Fruit, or nothing
- Kids' size
- Not buying
- Tasting flight
- A single scoop
- Sundae
- A dessert at a restaurant
- Affogato
- Coffee elsewhere
- Milkshake and float
- A drink from anywhere
- Take-home pint
- The supermarket freezer
- Hand-packed quart
- A pint
- Ice cream cake
- A bakery cake
- Ice cream sandwich and bar
- Novelties from a freezer aisle
- Seasonal or holiday flavor
- Nothing; it is a reason to visit
- Party tub and catering
- Doing it themselves
- Wholesale tub to a restaurant
- Their current supplier
What the customer is asking
- Single scoop in a cup
- Is it worth walking here?
- Cone
- Does the cone make it feel like more?
- Double or triple scoop
- Is the second scoop good value?
- Gelato spade serving
- Why is it denser and pricier?
- Sorbet and dairy-free
- Can I eat here at all?
- Kids' size
- Will it be finished?
- Tasting flight
- Can I try before committing?
- Sundae
- Is it a treat or a snack?
- Affogato
- Is this a coffee or a dessert?
- Milkshake and float
- Is it made from the real product?
- Take-home pint
- Why pay more for yours?
- Hand-packed quart
- Is bigger cheaper?
- Ice cream cake
- Will it survive the party?
- Ice cream sandwich and bar
- Is it worth a special trip?
- Seasonal or holiday flavor
- Is it here yet?
- Party tub and catering
- Can you make my event easy?
- Wholesale tub to a restaurant
- Is it better and reliable?
The trap for the shop
- Single scoop in a cup
- Serving size drift; the scoop grows with the queue
- Cone
- Cone breakage and cost; staff pushing cups by habit
- Double or triple scoop
- The second scoop is often nearly free to the customer and not to you
- Gelato spade serving
- Staff who cannot explain overrun sell it as expensive ice cream
- Sorbet and dairy-free
- One pan, made rarely, held too long
- Kids' size
- Priced as a loss leader that becomes the default order
- Tasting flight
- Labor on a busy night; the flight takes four spoons and four decisions
- Sundae
- Assembly time on a hot Saturday
- Affogato
- An espresso machine that is idle nine months a year
- Milkshake and float
- Blender noise, cleaning, and a sale that takes the time of three scoops
- Take-home pint
- Surface ice from a poor fill; a pint that disappoints at home does not come back
- Hand-packed quart
- Weight variance from hand packing
- Ice cream cake
- Made speculatively and discarded; no order-ahead process
- Ice cream sandwich and bar
- Assembly labor for a low-priced item
- Seasonal or holiday flavor
- Announced before it is ready, or held too long after
- Party tub and catering
- Cold-chain failure in a car; nobody agreed who owns the product after pickup
- Wholesale tub to a restaurant
- Thin margin after delivery; a customer who pays late
Using the table on your own menu
Take each line you run and answer the customer's question in one sentence you would be happy to say at the counter. If the honest answer is "no better than the alternative", the line is a convenience for the customer and a cost for you, and it stays only if it sells other things.
Then look at the trap column and ask whether it has already happened. Most shops find at least two: the second scoop that is nearly free, and the pint with ice on top.
The comparisons that matter most
Pint versus supermarket. This is the comparison that decides the winter. The supermarket pint is cheap, consistent and already in the customer's freezer. Yours has to be noticeably better and it has to arrive home in good condition, which is a packaging specification problem as much as a recipe one. If you cannot win this comparison, the take-home line will not carry the slow months.
Three comparisons that decide
Comparison
- Pint vs supermarket
- Cheap, consistent, already home
- Gelato vs ice cream
- Why one costs more
- Cake vs bakery
- Bakery cake survives the car
What the customer weighs
- Pint vs supermarket
- Noticeably better; arrives home good
- Gelato vs ice cream
- Say density in one sentence
- Cake vs bakery
- Box, collection window, freezer sentence
How the shop wins
- Pint vs supermarket
- Gelato vs ice cream
- Cake vs bakery
Gelato versus ice cream. The customer's question is why one costs more. The answer is density: less air per serving, more mix, more cost. A counter that can say that in one sentence sells gelato; one that cannot sells "expensive ice cream". This is a counter training item, not a menu item.
Cake versus bakery. A bakery cake survives the car. Yours might not. The comparison is won or lost on the box, the collection window, and the sentence at the till about going straight into a freezer.
What you may say when you make the comparison yourself
If your menu board or your pint label says why yours is better, that is advertising. The Federal Trade Commission: Advertising FAQs: A Guide for Small Business sets out that claims must be truthful and supportable. "No air added" is a measurable claim; be sure you can measure it. "Better than the supermarket" is an opinion and reads as one.
Records that turn the table into numbers
The table is qualitative. It turns quantitative when your till records sales by line. Then "customers compare pints with the supermarket" becomes "we sold this many pints in January".
From table to numbers
- Table is qualitative
- Till records sales by line
- Comparison becomes a number
- Keep sales and purchase records
The Internal Revenue Service: What kind of records should I keep? page describes sales and purchase records a small business should hold anyway. Set the till up by line, and the comparison data comes with them.
Lines that leave the building
The last two rows, catering and wholesale, are compared with the customer's own effort or their existing supplier, not with another dessert. They are less seasonal than the counter, which is why they matter, and they bring cold-chain and labeling questions the counter does not.
Whether packaged product sold to another business changes your license position is a question for the state agency named in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration: State Retail and Food Service Codes and Regulations directory, and the terms on which a shop takes on off-premises work are a separate decision from whether the product is good.
The full framework for deciding which lines to run, and in what order to add them, is the menu architecture for a scoop shop.
Common questions
Which of the seventeen should a new shop open with?
The counter lines the case can hold, filled. Add pints when the top flavors sell out. Everything else waits for freezer room and a team that can handle it.
Why is there no "best seller" column?
Because it would be a claim about your shop, and every shop's answer differs. Your till will give you the column in a month.
Do customers really compare pints with the supermarket?
Yes, at the moment they decide whether to make a second trip. The first pint is bought on impulse; the second is bought on memory of the first.
